Posts Tagged ‘get your private key’

The craze for many forks from the Bitcoin blockchain has resulted in people trying to claim their free coins in various ways, the easiest one is to keep a local wallet and just export your private keys from the Bitcoin wallet and import them to the wallet of the fork. As a security measure it is always advised to first move your Bitcoin (or other coins) to a new address before trying to claim any kind of forked coins, this way you can be safe that your private keys used for the claim cannot be used for stealing your actual BTC. With the recent addition of official support for SegWit addresses it might be a good time to update your Bitcoin Core wallet, generate a new SegWit wallet address and move your coins these and then start claiming some forked coins with the old private keys.

How to export the private keys:
– Start your Bitcoin Core or other QT-wallet
– Click on “Help” in the menu bar of the wallet
– Click on “Debug window” from the menu
– Select the “Console” tab to be able to type commands
– Unlock your wallet (if it is locked) with: walletpassphrase “your wallet password” 600
– Export the private key with: dumpprivkey “your Bitcoin address”
– Copy and keep safe the private key you will get for the respective wallet address you have typed
– Lock the wallet again with: walletlock

How to import the private keys:
– Start your Bitcoin Core or other QT-wallet
– Click on “Help” in the menu bar of the wallet
– Click on “Debug window” from the menu
– Select the “Console” tab to be able to type commands
– Unlock your (if it is locked) wallet with: walletpassphrase “your wallet password” 600
– Import the private key with: importprivkey “your Private key”
– You can check to see that a new receiving address has been added in the wallet
– Lock the wallet again with: walletlock

Make sure you import your private key(s) as soon as you start the local wallet for the fork in order to claim all of the coins properly, otherwise you might have to do a resync of the blockchain. Alternative solution would be to just copy the Bitcoin wallet.dat file, but then you might need to do a zapwallettxes and it can take longer time to claim if you have multiple wallets. Again, make sure you keep your private keys safe and do not share them or use them to try to claim coins unless you have already moved all of the coins to a new address prior to initiating the claiming process, otherwise there is a risk of loosing your BTC or other coins as there are scams out there posing as real forks that are trying to steal your coins. Even with legitimate forks it is always a wise idea to be on the safe side and never share or use a private key for a wallet that still have coins in it, just to avoid possible security risks.

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